SolidWorks has a simple, yet powerful mating feature. It is used for joining parts in an assembly and simulating how they fit together and move together. The picture of the engine above shows an intricate assembly. This tutorial will cover the most basic mates that we will use to simulate simple mechanical systems.

When creating new designs, there may be a picture or image created by an industrial designer, or picture of a prototype, that could be used as an aide to creating the design.
One way to do this is to insert a picture into the sketch and sketch over the image. Figure 1 shows an example of a part created from an original sketch. The sketch was inserted as a sketch and new features were created.

If you are using a common PhotoWorks Material such as `Metallic Green Paint` in multiple part and assembly documents then you should link the material to a file. If for instance your paint supplier changes the shade of the paint you only need to change the linked material file and PhotoWorks propagates the changes to any part or assembly that contains the linked material.

** Free Login Requried ** Here`s a helpful tip on how to use Layout Sketches From SolidProfessor.This tip is a brief overview on how to use Layout Sketches in SolidWorks. This tip requires a sound card.

In this edition of Tips & Tricks we`d like to share a lesson from our newly released course "SolidWorks Update Training 2006". Take a few moments here to check out the enhancements to the LOFT feature in SolidWorks 2006.